Life’s trials and triumphs are showcased in the families living in small Point Royal, Va., in Richard Bausch’s novel “Thanksgiving Night.” Robert L. Beisner has just released “Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War,” the latest biography of Acheson, the always brilliant and debonair Cold Warrior and secretary of state in the years following World War II. In Salman Rushdie’s “Shalimar the Clown,” now in paperback, when an ambassador is killed, the question is raised as to whether it was political assassination or something more personal. In January look for Linda Fairstein to hit the lists again with “Bad Blood,” a story of murder and other mayhem in the water tunnels deep below New York City.
FICTION
Thanksgiving Night, by Richard Bausch, HarperCollins, 416 pages, $24.95|In Bausch’s 10th novel, he examines the lives and fortunes of the members of a small community in the months leading up to the title holiday.
Pilate’s Wife, by Antoinette May, HarperCollins, 384 pages, $24.95|This fiction debut is all about sex, marriage, religion and spirituality told through the eyes of Claudia, wife to a Roman magistrate who ruled when Christ was crucified.
Secondhand World, by Katherine Min, Knopf, 288 pages, $23|In this debut novel, Min centers her story on the world in the United States after the Korean War and the effect of the war on a Korean-American family.
NONFICTION
Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War, by Robert L. Beisner, Oxford University Press, 992 pages, $35|Another biography of Acheson, who served first as undersecretary then secretary of state and on his relationship with President Truman.
When the Dancing Stopped: The Real Story of the Morro Castle Disaster and Its Deadly Wake, by Brian Hicks, Simon & Schuster, 368 pages, $25|The cause of the fire that destroyed cruise ship Morro Castle in 1934 was never found, but author Hicks makes a case for arson by a crewmember.
Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe, by Thomas Cahill, Doubleday, 368 pages, $32.50|The author of “The Wine Dark Sea” returns with a look at the Catholic Church and how it rose from the ashes of the Dark Ages.
PAPERBACKS
Shalimar the Clown, by Salman Rushdie, Random House, 416 pages, $14.95|In a parable of multiculturalism, Rushdie shows how two very different men’s paths meet tragically.
While They’re At War: The True Story of American Families on the Homefront, by Kristin Henderson, Houghton Mifflin, 336 pages, $13.95|A look at what happens to military families during wartime, centering on two women whose husbands were called to Iraq.
The Exquisite, by Laird Hunt, Coffee House Press, 256 pages, $14.95|Set in a jangled-nerve, post-9/11 Manhattan, Hunt’s novels centers on a drifter who works for a crew of fake assassins.
COMING UP
Bad Blood, by Linda Fairstein, Scribner, 416 pages, $26, Jan.|Alexandra Cooper is in the middle of prosecuting a murder case when the city is rocked by an explosion in a water tunnel. Is there a connection?
Adopted Son: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship That Saved the Revolution, by David A. Clary, Bantam, 512 pages, $27, Feb.|The story of how a self-taught Virginia gentleman in charge of an army befriends a young, orphaned French aristocrat and changed history.
Surveillance, by Jonathan Raban, Pantheon, Knopf, 272 pages, $24, Jan.|Set in the near future, Raban’s novel centers on a bestselling nonfiction author whose memoir is questioned and on an unfulfilled actor. And everyone is under watch by someone.
